aboutsummaryrefslogtreecommitdiffstats
path: root/docs/report/vpp_performance_tests/overview.rst
diff options
context:
space:
mode:
Diffstat (limited to 'docs/report/vpp_performance_tests/overview.rst')
-rw-r--r--docs/report/vpp_performance_tests/overview.rst325
1 files changed, 325 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/docs/report/vpp_performance_tests/overview.rst b/docs/report/vpp_performance_tests/overview.rst
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..d0ce5e7bcf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/report/vpp_performance_tests/overview.rst
@@ -0,0 +1,325 @@
+Overview
+========
+
+Tested Physical Topologies
+--------------------------
+
+CSIT VPP performance tests are executed on physical baremetal servers hosted by LF
+FD.io project. Testbed physical topology is shown in the figure below.
+
+::
+
+ +------------------------+ +------------------------+
+ | | | |
+ | +------------------+ | | +------------------+ |
+ | | | | | | | |
+ | | <-----------------> | |
+ | | DUT1 | | | | DUT2 | |
+ | +--^---------------+ | | +---------------^--+ |
+ | | | | | |
+ | | SUT1 | | SUT2 | |
+ +------------------------+ +------------------^-----+
+ | |
+ | |
+ | +-----------+ |
+ | | | |
+ +------------------> TG <------------------+
+ | |
+ +-----------+
+
+SUT1 and SUT2 are two System Under Test servers (Cisco UCS C240, each with two
+Intel XEON CPUs), TG is a Traffic Generator (TG, another Cisco UCS C240, with
+two Intel XEON CPUs). SUTs run VPP SW application in Linux user-mode as a
+Device Under Test (DUT). TG runs TRex SW application as a packet Traffic
+Generator. Physical connectivity between SUTs and to TG is provided using
+different NIC models that need to be tested for performance. Currently
+installed and tested NIC models include:
+
+#. 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel.
+#. 2port10GE X710 Intel.
+#. 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco.
+#. 2port40GE VIC1385 Cisco.
+#. 2port40GE XL710 Intel.
+
+From SUT and DUT perspective, all performance tests involve forwarding packets
+between two physical Ethernet ports (10GE or 40GE). Due to the number of
+listed NIC models tested and available PCI slot capacity in SUT servers, in
+all of the above cases both physical ports are located on the same NIC. In
+some test cases this results in measured packet throughput being limited not
+by VPP DUT but by either the physical interface or the NIC capacity.
+
+Going forward CSIT project will be looking to add more hardware into FD.io
+performance labs to address larger scale multi-interface and multi-NIC
+performance testing scenarios.
+
+For test cases that require DUT (VPP) to communicate with VM over vhost-user
+interfaces, a VM is created on SUT1 and SUT2. DUT (VPP) test topology with VM
+is shown in the figure below including applicable packet flow thru the VM
+(marked in the figure with ``***``).
+
+::
+
+ +------------------------+ +------------------------+
+ | +----------+ | | +----------+ |
+ | | VM | | | | VM | |
+ | | ****** | | | | ****** | |
+ | +--^----^--+ | | +--^----^--+ |
+ | *| |* | | *| |* |
+ | +------v----v------+ | | +------v----v------+ |
+ | | * * |**|***********|**| * * | |
+ | | ***** *******<----------------->******* ***** | |
+ | | * DUT1 | | | | DUT2 * | |
+ | +--^---------------+ | | +---------------^--+ |
+ | *| | | |* |
+ | *| SUT1 | | SUT2 |* |
+ +------------------------+ +------------------^-----+
+ *| |*
+ *| |*
+ *| +-----------+ |*
+ *| | | |*
+ *+------------------> TG <------------------+*
+ ******************* | |********************
+ +-----------+
+
+For VM tests, packets are switched by DUT (VPP) twice, hence the
+throughput rates measured by TG (and listed in this report) must be multiplied
+by two to represent the actual DUT aggregate packet forwarding rate.
+
+Note that reported VPP performance results are specific to the SUT tested.
+Current LF FD.io SUTs are based on Intel XEON E5-2699v3 2.3GHz CPUs. SUTs with
+other CPUs are likely to yield different results. A good rule of thumb, that
+can be applied to estimate VPP packet thoughput for Phy-to-Phy (NIC-to-NIC,
+PCI-to-PCI) topology, is to expect the forwarding performance to be
+proportional to CPU core frequency, assuming CPU is the only limiting factor
+and all other SUT aspects equal to FD.io CSIT environment. The same rule of
+thumb can be also applied for Phy-to-VM-to-Phy (NIC-to-VM-to-NIC) topology,
+but due to much higher dependency on very high frequency memory operations and
+sensitivity to Linux kernel scheduler settings and behaviour, this estimation
+may not always yield good enough accuracy.
+
+Detailed LF FD.io test bed specification and physical topology are described
+in `wiki CSIT LF FDio testbed <https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/CSIT_LF_testbed>`_.
+
+Performance Tests Coverage
+--------------------------
+
+Performance tests are split into the two main categories:
+
+- Throughput discovery - discovery of packet forwarding rate using binary search
+ in accordance to RFC2544.
+
+ - NDR - discovery of Non Drop Rate packet throughput, at zero packet loss;
+ followed by packet one-way latency measurements at 10%, 50% and 100% of
+ discovered NDR throughput.
+ - PDR - discovery of Partial Drop Rate, with specified non-zero packet loss
+ currently set to 0.5%; followed by packet one-way latency measurements at
+ 100% of discovered PDR throughput.
+
+- Throughput verification - verification of packet forwarding rate against
+ previously discovered throughput rate. These tests are currently done against
+ 0.9 of reference NDR, with reference rates updated periodically.
+
+CSIT |release| includes following performance test suites, listed per NIC type:
+
+- 2port10GE X520-DA2 Intel
+
+ - **L2XC** - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding of untagged, dot1q, dot1ad
+ VLAN tagged Ethernet frames.
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning; disabled MAC learning i.e. static MAC tests to be added.
+ - **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPv4 Scale** - IPv4 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
+ - **IPv6 Scale** - IPv6 routed-forwarding with 20k, 200k and 2M FIB entries.
+ - **VM with vhost-user** - switching between NIC ports and VM over vhost-user
+ interfaces in different switching modes incl. L2 Cross-Connect, L2
+ Bridge-Domain, VXLAN with L2BD, IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **COP** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with COP address security.
+ - **iACL** - IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding with iACL address security.
+ - **LISP** - LISP overlay tunneling for IPv4-over-IPV4, IPv6-over-IPv4,
+ IPv6-over-IPv6, IPv4-over-IPv6 in IPv4 and IPv6 routed-forwarding modes.
+ - **VXLAN** - VXLAN overlay tunnelling integration with L2XC and L2BD.
+ - **QoS Policer** - ingress packet rate measuring, marking and limiting
+ (IPv4).
+
+- 2port40GE XL710 Intel
+
+ - **L2XC** - L2 Cross-Connect switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames.
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+ - **IPv4** - IPv4 routed-forwarding.
+ - **IPv6** - IPv6 routed-forwarding.
+ - **VM with vhost-user** - switching between NIC ports and VM over vhost-user
+ interfaces in different switching modes incl. L2 Bridge-Domain.
+
+- 2port10GE X710 Intel
+
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+ - **VM with vhost-user** - switching between NIC ports and VM over vhost-user
+ interfaces in different switching modes incl. L2 Bridge-Domain.
+
+- 2port10GE VIC1227 Cisco
+
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+
+- 2port40GE VIC1385 Cisco
+
+ - **L2BD** - L2 Bridge-Domain switched-forwarding of untagged Ethernet frames
+ with MAC learning.
+
+Execution of performance tests takes time, especially the throughput discovery
+tests. Due to limited HW testbed resources available within FD.io labs hosted
+by Linux Foundation, the number of tests for NICs other than X520 (a.k.a.
+Niantic) has been limited to few baseline tests. Over time we expect the HW
+testbed resources to grow, and will be adding complete set of performance
+tests for all models of hardware to be executed regularly and(or)
+continuously.
+
+Performance Tests Naming
+------------------------
+
+CSIT |release| introduced a common structured naming convention for all
+performance and functional tests. This change was driven by substantially
+growing number and type of CSIT test cases. Firstly, the original practice did
+not always follow any strict naming convention. Secondly test names did not
+always clearly capture tested packet encapsulations, and the actual type or
+content of the tests. Thirdly HW configurations in terms of NICs, ports and
+their locality were not captured either. These were but few reasons that drove
+the decision to change and define a new more complete and stricter test naming
+convention, and to apply this to all existing and new test cases.
+
+The new naming should be intuitive for majority of the tests. The complete
+description of CSIT test naming convention is provided on `CSIT test naming wiki
+<https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-test-naming>`_.
+
+Here few illustrative examples of the new naming usage for performance test
+suites:
+
+#. **Physical port to physical port - a.k.a. NIC-to-NIC, Phy-to-Phy, P2P**
+
+ - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
+ PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-TestType*
+ - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
+ Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline switching
+ with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-ndrchk.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE
+ on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain baseline
+ switching with MAC learning, NDR throughput discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4-ip4base-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on Intel
+ x520 NIC, IPv4 baseline routed forwarding, NDR throughput discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip6-ip6scale200k-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports of 10GE on
+ Intel x520 NIC, IPv6 scaled up routed forwarding, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+
+#. **Physical port to VM (or VM chain) to physical port - a.k.a. NIC2VM2NIC,
+ P2V2P, NIC2VMchain2NIC, P2V2V2P**
+
+ - *PortNICConfig-WireEncapsulation-PacketForwardingFunction-
+ PacketProcessingFunction1-...-PacketProcessingFunctionN-VirtEncapsulation-
+ VirtPortConfig-VMconfig-TestType*
+ - *10ge2p1x520-dot1q-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2 ports
+ of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, dot1q tagged Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
+ switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-2vhost-1vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
+ ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
+ switching to/from two vhost interfaces and one VM, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+ - *10ge2p1x520-ethip4vxlan-l2bdbasemaclrn-eth-4vhost-2vm-ndrdisc.robot* => 2
+ ports of 10GE on Intel x520 NIC, IPv4 VXLAN Ethernet, L2 bridge-domain
+ switching to/from four vhost interfaces and two VMs, NDR throughput
+ discovery.
+
+Methodology: Multi-Thread and Multi-Core
+----------------------------------------
+
+**HyperThreading** - CSIT |release| performance tests are executed with SUT
+servers' Intel XEON CPUs configured in HyperThreading Disabled mode (BIOS
+settings). This is the simplest configuration used to establish baseline
+single-thread single-core SW packet processing and forwarding performance.
+Subsequent releases of CSIT will add performance tests with Intel
+HyperThreading Enabled (requires BIOS settings change and hard reboot).
+
+**Multi-core Test** - CSIT |release| multi-core tests are executed in the
+following VPP thread and core configurations:
+
+#. 1t1c - 1 VPP worker thread on 1 CPU physical core.
+#. 2t2c - 2 VPP worker threads on 2 CPU physical cores.
+#. 4t4c - 4 VPP threads on 4 CPU physical cores.
+
+Note that in quite a few test cases running VPP on 2 or 4 physical cores hits
+the tested NIC I/O bandwidth or packets-per-second limit.
+
+Methodology: Packet Throughput
+------------------------------
+
+Following values are measured and reported for packet throughput tests:
+
+- NDR binary search per RFC2544:
+
+ - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps
+ (2x <per direction packets-per-second>)"
+ - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
+ second> Gbps (untagged)"
+
+- PDR binary search per RFC2544:
+
+ - Packet rate: "RATE: <aggregate packet rate in packets-per-second> pps (2x
+ <per direction packets-per-second>)"
+ - Aggregate bandwidth: "BANDWIDTH: <aggregate bandwidth in Gigabits per
+ second> Gbps (untagged)"
+ - Packet loss tolerance: "LOSS_ACCEPTANCE <accepted percentage of packets
+ lost at PDR rate>""
+
+- NDR and PDR are measured for the following L2 frame sizes:
+
+ - IPv4: 64B, IMIX_v4_1 (28x64B,16x570B,4x1518B), 1518B, 9000B.
+ - IPv6: 78B, 1518B, 9000B.
+
+
+Methodology: Packet Latency
+---------------------------
+
+TRex Traffic Generator (TG) is used for measuring latency of VPP DUTs. Reported
+latency values are measured using following methodology:
+
+- Latency tests are performed at 10%, 50% of discovered NDR rate (non drop rate)
+ for each NDR throughput test and packet size (except IMIX).
+- TG sends dedicated latency streams, one per direction, each at the rate of
+ 10kpps at the prescribed packet size; these are sent in addition to the main
+ load streams.
+- TG reports min/avg/max latency values per stream direction, hence two sets
+ of latency values are reported per test case; future release of TRex is
+ expected to report latency percentiles.
+- Reported latency values are aggregate across two SUTs due to three node
+ topology used for all performance tests; for per SUT latency, reported value
+ should be divided by two.
+- 1usec is the measurement accuracy advertised by TRex TG for the setup used in
+ FD.io labs used by CSIT project.
+- TRex setup introduces an always-on error of about 2*2usec per latency flow -
+ additonal Tx/Rx interface latency induced by TRex SW writing and reading
+ packet timestamps on CPU cores without HW acceleration on NICs closer to the
+ interface line.
+
+
+Methodology: KVM VM vhost
+-------------------------
+
+CSIT |release| introduced environment configuration changes to KVM Qemu vhost-
+user tests in order to more representatively measure VPP-17.01 performance in
+configurations with vhost-user interfaces and VMs.
+
+Current setup of CSIT FD.io performance lab is using tuned settings for more
+optimal performance of KVM Qemu:
+
+- Default Qemu virtio queue size of 256 descriptors.
+- Adjusted Linux kernel CFS scheduler settings, as detailed on this CSIT wiki
+ page: https://wiki.fd.io/view/CSIT/csit-perf-env-tuning-ubuntu1604.
+
+Adjusted Linux kernel CFS settings make the NDR and PDR throughput performance
+of VPP+VM system less sensitive to other Linux OS system tasks by reducing
+their interference on CPU cores that are designated for critical software
+tasks under test, namely VPP worker threads in host and Testpmd threads in
+guest dealing with data plan.